View Source (Outlook 2003 )

Am currently not using the Preview Pane. I'd like to be able to use the 'View Source' feature in Outlook 2003 to get a quick look at some of my more questionable mail (i.e., possible spam) without actually opening the message. This can be done easily in OE 6 by simply right-clicking the unopened message. Is there a way to view the source of an unopened message in Outlook 2003?

Re: View Source (Outlook 2003 )

There is no built-in way to pre-preview a message in Outlook in versions 2000 or 2002; if there is a new way to do it in 2003, I wouldn't know. But you can choose to view HTML messages without pulling linked images, which at least minimizes the "phone home" aspect of the problem (as well as shielding you to some extent from particularly nasty images).

I wrote my own previewer, which has gone through a number of changes over the past year. It's far more complicated that you need to simply view the source. I think a macro like this would do that. I've used the Outlook Note feature to display the source because it has a much larger capacity than a Message Box (the kind used to display short messages and the OK and Cancel buttons), but is faster to display than Notepad.

You would need to add a button for this on the menu bar or a toolbar to make it convenient to use. (Unfortunately, at least in versions 2000-2002, there is no way to customize the right-click menu.)

This macro does have a serious flaw: Outlook makes it difficult to ascertain the format of the body before it is displayed, so the macro simply assumes that all are HTML and displays the "HTMLBody" of the message. In the case of a plain text message, you will see a body that Outlook as generated on the fly. There are a number of way to try to figure out the true nature of the message, but none that I can do on a holiday. <img src=/S/smile.gif border=0 alt=smile width=15 height=15> Hope this helps.